Doing more for our community

HoHoTO began in 2008 with a call to arms on Twitter: Toronto’s digital mavens can do more for our community.

From that first event and every year that’s followed, we’ve continued to work towards making a significant impact on the digital community in Toronto, now with over $400,000 raised for local charities.

Now impact and opportunity are our focus, as we bring the digital community together in support of organizations that directly affect beneficial change in our technology ecosystem with a comprehensive approach to improving workplace diversity.

Organizations with impact

Participating in HoHoTO year-round are a number of organizations who are helping to drive opportunity, diversity, and innovation in the workplace now and in the future.

HoHoTO will be the hub that connects their workplace diversity efforts to engage more women and marginalized groups in entrepreneurial, digital, and engineering pursuits.

Upside Foundation, encouraging entrepreneurs to give back by donating options or warrants.

It begins with the Girls’ Centre

The YWCA Toronto’s Girls’ Centre in east Toronto is the only centre of its kind in Canada.

This centre serves girls ages 9-18, of all ethnicities and belief systems, by providing a safe space, food, activities, and learning programs, 7 days a week.

With our collective efforts, we can provide over 400 girls with new opportunities in business and technology.

Our long-term mission is to fund the entire annual budget of the Girl’s Centre. Then open another.

This year, we’ll be supporting the Girls’ Centre with your sponsorship dollars and by rallying professional women as mentors.

Your support will go a long way towards reaching these goals.

We understand the complexity of workplace diversity in the digital industry. It’s our belief that this challenge is exacerbated by a lack of access and engagement in digital pursuits by youth, particularly girls and young women. For example, when you have a university computer science class with only a handful of women, you end up having dozens more men ready to be hired into the workforce.

By initiating programs for young women and marginalized youth to learn more about technology-driven businesses and entrepreneurship, while giving them access to technology—from computers to programming to connected devices—we’re setting the stage for more women and marginalized youth to pursue digital careers.

HoHoTO’s holiday party is a chance for professionals to get together to support these initiatives and celebrate our successes throughout the year.